Heartsease
by Rainstorm Amaya Arianrhod
Summary: Enemies become friends, friends become...


**A/N: **Kel/Zahir. Just for a change. You no like. You no READ. Please r/r!

**Dedication: **To my best friend.

**Disclaimer: **patient sigh No, not mine... dear.

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1 Comfort

He saw her crying for her sparrow friends, and wondered why he wanted to help her.

2 Kiss

He was horribly jealous when he saw the sergeant with the blue eyes kiss her, and then it occurred to him that he should not be jealous, because, after all, hadn't he fought her, once, and hadn't she been right all along, and shouldn't that make him hate her?

3 Soft

Kel realized it had been less than polite of her to deliberately try to unhorse Zahir, then thought that the ground was soft, and she hadn't hurt him.

4 Pain

The first time Zahir saw any emotion on Kel's face, it was terror of heights, and it touched him; the second, triumph from sending him flying, and it irked him; the third, agony from an arrow in her side, and it was his turn to be terrified.

5 Potatoes

He was very aware that it might not be the best idea to comment on women as warriors disparagingly while posted in New Hope, but he still didn't expect that spoonful of mashed potato in the face.

6 Rain

Kel liked rain. She didn't really mind getting wet, but the thing that made rain so interesting for her was the hilarious spectacle of Zahir hunched up and sulking under a constant torrent of cold northern rain.

7 Chocolate

It was something that came from a place that had once been Ekallatum, and Kel adored it. But that didn't explain why she tripped over a box of it that just happened to be outside her room on February the 14th.

8 Happiness

Zahir could see Kel was happy, with her refugees and her students up here in the cold north, and he caught his mind drifting onto what she might think of the desert.

9 Telephone

It was one of Thom's inventions that Kel refused to try: a speaking-spell that allowed you to see and talk to a person at the same time, that could be used by anyone, even without the Gift.

10 Ears

Zahir has ears to hear with, but he thinks they must have lied to him for the first time ever when he hears Kel humming a faint tune under her breath.

11 Name

Kel knows that Zahir was named for his father, but what she doesn't realise is that Zahir's name, according to Bazhir tradition, was his father's death sentence.

12 Sensual

Zahir is not fool enough to go anywhere near Kel when she wields her glaive, but he likes to watch from a distance: he finds there is something oddly riveting in the effortless ease she practises every morning.

13 Death

He knows Kel is not a stranger to death, but her face when Yuki followed her husband to the Black God's Realm, leaving Kasumi to cry her little heart out into Kel's lap, was a study in grief.

14 Sex

Of all the sights Zahir expected to see in the Lower City, none of them were a half-broken figure with a broken arm, fractured leg and a sprained ankle: he could barely tell it was Kel. Which leads him to wonder why Kel, of all people, got into such a brutal fight.

He later learns that she was trying to quell a riot.

15 Touch

She won't let anyone but her mother, Yuki or Shinko even touch her, and that hurts Zahir.

16 Weakness

He notices that her hands shake sometimes, and he reaches over to steady them, and later scolds himself for weakness: he should not care about a sworn enemy.

17 Tears

Kel only cries when she is absolutely sure no-one is listening, and sometimes she is wrong.

18 Speed

Kel refused to race Hoshi with Zahir's Stardust: for one thing, she knew Hoshi would lose, and she didn't want to lose to him.

19 Wind

The wind whistles in his ears, and he's glad when she joins him- guard duty is boring, and he likes the sound of her voice better than the sound of the wind.

20 Freedom

He asks her what she values most, and she answers: freedom.

21 Life

Life hasn't been especially nice to Kel or Zahir, and it's nice to know for both of them that at the end of the day there is someone who can say they understand and tell the truth.

22 Jealousy

Jealousy is not something either of them succumb to, in public, but Kel will admit to feeling its pangs occasionally- although why it should bother her when Zahir walks off with a Court lady, or a Rider, she really doesn't know.

23 Hands

He can't help but notice how elegant her hands are, even crisscrossed with pale scars, and a memory of a tall squire in green and yellow wrestling with a baby griffin crosses his mind.

24 Taste

He doesn't understand why she likes chocolate and not dates; after all, they're both sweet, aren't they? But he won't tell her about the fact that it was him who left the chocolates outside her room a couple of months ago. He is perfectly willing to keep that particular secret.

25 Devotion

It's something Kel'll never understand, for all her Yamani face-reading. It's in the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he looks, and Kel hasn't seen the like before- except possibly once during an uncomfortable trip to the Copper Isles. It was in the way Nawat looked at Aly.

26 Forever

When Sir Myles points out to Kel, after a few too many insults, that there will forever be men who believe women should be tied to the home, Zahir is surprised by the steely determination in Kel's reply: "I suppose that means that I will be giving them lessons in flight forever, won't I?"

27 Blood

Zahir hates blood. The cut across Kel's knuckles bleeds profusely, and he is astonished to hear her smile, and say casually- "Now that you've injured me, Alanna, would you awfully mind patching me up?"

28 Sickness

Kel refuses to admit that she's ill, she is just far too busy to be ill- but she does admit that she hasn't a clue how Zahir got to be a part of the group that ambushed her outside the dining hall and dragged her to the healers. The excuse Alanna later gives is that "Well, Kasumi might've caught it, mightn't she?" and Kel realizes that she's being a very bad guardian.

29 Melody

One of the things Kasumi and Kel discover in the next few weeks is that Kel has a very nice singing voice. Zahir discovers it as well, and it stops him in his tracks as he walks through the square near where they are.

30 Star

He knew Kel loved the stars, but he didn't know that she'd dare to climb out of her window when no-one was watching and sit on the barracks roof just to watch them.

31 Home

She wonders how he could possibly call a large patch of sand home, and he wonders how she could possibly call a rocky bit of cold ground home, and they agree to disagree.

32 Confusion

It wasn't much of a battle, really. Just rather a lot of bandits, but they weren't really ready for them, and in all the confusion he lost sight of Kel.

33 Fear

It wasn't fear, in the same way Kasumi feared for her Auntie Kel. It wasn't the gut-wrenching anxiety that caused Merric to stamp up and down the room in that distracting way. Nor was it the finger-twiddling, knee-jogging foot-tapping impatience for Kel to return that characterized Lord Raoul. No, it was worry for a valued... friend? Enemy? Zahir didn't know any more.

34 Lightning/Thunder

Kasumi hates thunder. She hates it with a passion, but she's terrified of lightning- at least according to her. That still doesn't explain, to Kel's mind, why she insisted during a nasty, if shortlived, thunderstorm in the middle of the day that Zahir would be glad for some company.

Even if he was glad for company.

35 Bonds

Zahir doesn't know what personal demon prompted him to try and play a practical joke on Kel, but he was shocked when she actually played one back. It wasn't what he expected from the lady knight. But then again- she did seem to like yanking the rug from under his feet.

36 Market

The market is crowded, and Kel doesn't like crowds that much: she was grateful when Zahir tapped her shoulder and silently indicated way out. It left a tingling feeling behind.

37 Technology

"And what do you call this?" Kel asked resignedly as Thom of Prate's Swoop displayed his latest invention.

"Oh, I like to call it the searchbeam," Thom said confidently, turned the contraption to face her, and let loose a blinding stream of light on her eyes. Suddenly, it stopped: Kel blinked and noticed that Zahir held her wrists.

He had pulled her out of the way of the light.

38 Gift

Zahir thinks it's a gift just to be allowed to watch her.

39 Smile

You wouldn't think it, to see her at her most impassive, but when she smiled, it reminded Zahir of the desert sun: bright, beautiful and slightly deadly.

40 Innocence

He suspects she hides what she doesn't know about love behind what she does of war.

41 Completion

"There's nothing quite like a task done well," she told him proudly. He had a niggling sense that he'd left something very important undone.

42 Clouds

It felt like a dark cloud across the day when Kel heard that Zahir was going to be posted to Corus in a week.

43 Sky

The sky was grey and bleak and empty two days before Zahir was due to leave. Kel decided it suited her mood perfectly.

44 Heaven

Kel realised she'd drunk too much (most out of character! She couldn't think what has possessed her) when her lips met Zahir's.

Still, it felt like heaven-

45 Hell

but the hangover the next day felt like the ninth circle of hell.

46 Sun

Zahir concluded that Kel was like the sun: his heart revolved around her.

47 Moon

The moon was out, and the Goddess watched in intense satisfaction as the second lady knight found her heart.

48 Waves

Kel's hair goes wavy whenever she washes it- Zahir thinks it suits her.

49 Hair

The sun glinted on Kel's quickly drying hair. It dazzled Zahir- not that he wasn't dazzled anyway, but...

50 Super

Zahir has always thought it an inane adjective. In his mind, it doesn't go half-way to describing Kel.


End file.
